Not tired

Eli has a pretty good bedtime routine going. Round about 7:20 p.m., we make him a bottle, which he happily takes, and then we brush his teeth, then sit and read a book or two (or sometimes the same book four times), snuggle a little, and he's happily in bed by 7:35 or thereabouts. Not tonight. Tonight, Eli was Not Tired. I mean, he was tired. He just had a little sugar high from his post-dinner pear, might have been slightly overtired, and didn't want to leave mommy. Every attempt to sit down and have a nice warm bottle led to him wiggling out of the chair and running out the door. Teeth-brushing went fine, books were brushed away with a giggle (and bolting for the door). I finally resorted, at 7:35 or so, to turning off all the lights, hugging him close, rocking back and forth, and singing "The Wheels on the Bus." The problem was that my motherly gravitas was slightly impaired by Eli poking me in first my eyes, then his, and gleefully announcing, "eye! eye! eyes! eye!" I cracked up, but tried to power through the song. Next, he stuck his left index finger up his nose to the first knuckle. I pulled it out. He immediately jammed his right finger into his other nostril. I pulled it out and moved on to "The Itsy Bitsy Spider," once I stopped laughing so hard tears came out of my eyes. Not a relaxing vibe, mom. In response, he started pulling imaginary presents out of his ears and putting them in mine. I sat down in the chair (the kid is getting heavy!). We rocked quietly while he pulled back the curtain, let it drop, pulled it back and proclaimed "outside." I determinedly kept rocking until, at 7:45, he put his head down on my shoulder with a sigh. I took him over to the crib, he dived in, and he was asleep within minutes. Phew. I prefer Tired. Word update: Eli's been expanding his vocabulary to an insane degree! He "talks" pretty much constantly, and now says, "walk," "shoes," (he combines this with "outside," as in, I need shoes to go outside), "socks," "wa-wa" (water), "wash," (he's working on "w" noises), "home," (when we pull into the driveway), "eyes," (when he pokes you in them,) he's improving his "ca-ca" (cracker) no more like, "quacka," he's formalized his "bye-bye" to a breezy little "bye," and he has little sentences like, "it's the cat!" He also repeats lots of the things we say, which often leads to amazing and adorable results. I think there's more, but I'll have to be better about writing them down as they come up. Or, soon, I'll just have to report that "Eli talks." Updated to add: he also says "hot," and he sometimes uses this to mean, "I'm hungry, give me some food." I think because we're often serving him food and telling him it's hot. Now it just means, you know, food. So, we've ruined that as a warning word. But it's still pretty hilarious.